Official and Confidential_ The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover - Anthony Summers [204]
History was leaving Edgar behind. In the past he had always known how to maneuver, how to respond to change in ways that left the FBI looking good. Now he failed to see how Middle America, his traditional constituency, was changing. The tide of opinion was running in favor of civil rights, a factor the FBI could have exploited by being seen to enforce the law. Instead, Edgar ranted on about supposed Communist influence on the black movement and about Martin Luther King’s ‘lies.’ Millions of Americans were turning against the Vietnam War, but Edgar exacerbated the situation by having his agents infiltrate the protest groups and sending agents provocateurs to disrupt demonstrations. The manipulator of public opinion had lost his touch.
Then, when Edgar’s decline and fall seemed inevitable, along came Richard Nixon.
It was as if some historical magnet had pulled the two together. Twenty-one years had passed since Edgar first cast an approving eye on Nixon. He and his wealthy friends, the Texas oilmen, had nursed Nixon on his way to becoming Vice President in 1952. Nixon had been seen repeatedly at Edgar’s side, on trips to the races and at baseball games, before the 1960 upset that swept Nixon into the political wilderness.
Even in the wilderness Edgar had been there, a sympathetic houseguest at the Nixon home in California. ‘Hoover,’ Nixon would say ruefully when Edgar was gone and when Watergate dragged him down in disgrace, ‘was my crony.’
In 1968, as Nixon reached for the presidency, he committed himself to keeping Edgar on as soon as his campaign went into high gear. Edgar leaked information designed to hurl the Democratic opposition. He laughed off a bid, meanwhile, to get him to run for Vice President alongside the southern conservative George Wallace. Dreams of a place for himself at the White House were long past – what Edgar wanted now was safe passage in a seaworthy Republican ship.
All the gang were there, the millionaires and the middlemen. That summer, funds flowed into the Nixon coffers from Clint Murchison in Texas and Lewis Rosenstiel in New York. Louis Nichols, once Edgar’s political fixer and now Rosenstiel’s, became one of Nixon’s political advisers.
Edgar covered his bets. He knew Vice President Hubert Humphrey, by then the leading Democratic contender, still had a good chance of winning. He raised no objection, therefore, when Humphrey’s people asked for the ‘same service’ at the Convention that the FBI had given Johnson four years earlier. This time, however, there would be no electronic surveillance; when Edgar asked Attorney General Ramsey Clark for approval, he was turned down flat.1
Edgar worried about his fate should Humphrey become president. In the White House, a depressed Lyndon Johnson worried – again – about his personal safety. ‘Tell Edgar Hoover,’ he told an aide, ‘that I have taken care of him since the beginning of my administration, and now that I am leaving, I expect him to take care of me … There will be any number of crackpots trying to get at me after January 20, 1969.’
In November, when Nixon scraped home to victory, Edgar wrote Johnson a last obsequious letter:
My dear Mr President,
You have afforded me many pleasant moments for many years. As a personal friend, neighbor and subordinate, I have enjoyed your company … Clyde Tolson and Deke DeLoach join me in expressing appreciation for your kindness. They, too, are very grateful for the time spent with you.
Sincerely,
Edgar
Within two days of writing this farewell note, Edgar was closeted with Nixon at New York’s Pierre Hotel, telling him of Johnson’s illicit use of the FBI during the campaign. ‘Hoover told me the cabin on my plane was bugged for the last two weeks,’ Nixon would recall. ‘Hoover told [Attorney General-to-be] Mitchell and me separately … Johnson ordered it.’
FBI files contain no evidence that Nixon was bugged, only that checks were made on the phone records of his running mate,